Let’s be crystal clear: If the U.N., Red Cross, and even the Obama administration win the legal argument, nations like Israel and the United States will no longer have a meaningful right to defend themselves. If direct warnings of an attack are insufficient, when can a nation defend itself against jihadists who are violating the laws of war? Such rules would give terrorists (who care nothing for the law) safe havens throughout cities and towns as they appropriate and strike from civilian buildings.
It has never been the law that any fighting force, anywhere, enjoys a safe haven when it strikes its enemies. Jihadists, who systematically violate the laws of war, should be the least protected of all combatants. To provide them with any protection at all merely guarantees that civilians will be placed in the crosshairs again and again.
The international left, the U.N., and the Red Cross understand this reality. They are not fools. One can only conclude that they are objectively siding with brutal war criminals, rendering them complicit (and in the case of the U.N., often explicit co-conspirators) in war crimes.
Let’s take the example of the International Red Cross, a formerly respected international organization that loses its moral authority with every pro-Hamas statement. In a recent article, the Red Cross discussed an Israeli strike on a seven-story building in Gaza. In the article, the Red Cross made the following statement:
The ICRC engages in discussion with “both parties” about the “rules of war.” We talk about principles such as “precautions in attack,” “legitimate targets,” “concrete military advantage” and “proportionality.” We remind everybody that if an attack is expected to cause “excessive incidental civilian casualties” in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, it must be cancelled or suspended. We say loudly and clearly that in this war, as in any other, it is not acceptable that soldiers minimize their risks at the expense of civilians on the other side. We also say it is not acceptable to use civilians as human shields, in any conflict. We attend diplomatic conferences, we organize workshops, we “raise awareness” among belligerents to “minimize casualties.” How effective is all this?1
Such statements are both self-serving and misleading—especially when it is clear that one side (Israel) is making herculean attempts to fully comply with the law of war and the other side (Hamas) violates the law as a matter of intentional, premeditated strategy. There is no moral equivalency here. Readily available evidence establishes beyond doubt that Hamas is routinely, openly, and notoriously violating the law of war. Yet Israel is singled out by the Red Cross, the U.N., and the Obama administration for actions it would have preferred to avoid altogether, but for the incessant attacks on Israeli soil from Hamas-controlled Gaza. The U.N. is going so far as to launch an investigation of Israel, the only party to the conflict that complies with the law of war.2
The Red Cross and the U.N. consistently ignore or minimize the fact that Hamas built tunnels in civilian areas or stored weapons in hospitals and schools, or that the Israeli military warns civilians (the very civilians Hamas put in danger in the first place) through various means before attacking a military target. The paragraph quoted above does not state which party in the conflict is violating the “rules of war.” While Hamas spends millions of dollars to dig tunnels in civilian areas to attack Israel3 and puts Palestinian civilians (whom Hamas purports to represent) in the line of fire, Israel builds shelters for its people. While Hamas brags about its use of human shields,4 Israel makes conscious attempts to abide by the rules of war to protect civilians.
In this book we have taken great pains to explain exactly how groups like Hamas and ISIS systematically violate the law of war in a depraved effort to create maximum human suffering. I would say that we have pulled no punches, graphically describing exactly how evil these enemies are. But though we want the reader to know the truth, the whole truth is simply too much for most people to bear. It is too graphic to print, to describe fully.
Veterans of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as well as the IDF’s veterans of conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon—will carry with them sights and experiences they can never forget. These memories will haunt them for a lifetime. They have witnessed evil as great as any the world has ever seen. They have witnessed evil acts from enemies that would re-create Auschwitz and Dachau if they could, from enemies who have openly declared war not just on Israel, but on the Jewish people themselves.
The fact that millions across the world support those enemies over Israel and the United States, even going to great lengths to strengthen terrorists and weaken the IDF and the U.S. military, demonstrates that the spirit of murder and collaboration that haunted much of Europe under Nazi occupation has not disappeared. It has only morphed into the preening high-mindedness of leftist “thought.”
History rightly looks at Neville Chamberlain and other appeasers of Hitler’s Germany as instruments of death and disaster. Today’s appeasers are not morally better and are indeed often much worse. After all, when Chamberlain appeased Hitler, Germany’s leader had not yet unleashed his murderous armies across Europe. When the U.N., Red Cross, and—sadly—even our own American president and State Department appease jihad, they do so with eyes wide open, fully aware of the evil they empower.
They should hang their heads in shame.